‘Less Lethal’: Good Intentions, Dangerous Results

Beanbag rounds and similar technologies are absolutely incompatible with civilian self-defense. When police officers employ them — if they’re being tactically smart — they use them in limited situations as a last resort in an attempt to avoid having to use deadly force, but almost always where the use of deadly force is proper and legally authorized. Typically one officer employs the less-lethal method while at least one other officer covers the bad guy with a firearm.

In any deadly force encounter, and surely in school shootings, the three main issues to consider are means, opportunity, and jeopardy. Does the bad guy have the means — a weapon or obvious potential physical ability — to cause serous bodily injury or death? Does he have the opportunity? Is he within the effective range of his weapon? Is he putting people in jeopardy? Is he demonstrating his intention to cause injury or death? If all of these factors are present, deadly force is not only allowed, but necessary to stop the attacker.

In the Newtown killings, the killer began by shooting his way into the school and immediately thereafter began killing innocents. There could be no doubt of his intent or of the immediate necessity to stop him.

Probably the best illustration of the relevant issues was a bizarre 1997 standoff between a katana (Japanese sword) -wielding man and the Seattle Police. (Video of the incident, and an account.) In that case, all of the elements for the use of deadly force were present. The man had the means to cause serious bodily injury or death and he had the opportunity to do it. He was standing on the street, threatening anyone within range. Removing a sword from its scabbard for any reason other than cleaning or training is more than sufficient demonstration of deadly intent. While the man obviously knew nothing of actual swordsmanship, he was still sufficiently dangerous. The only element of deadly force that was lacking was jeopardy. As long as the police could keep the man far enough away from them and others, jeopardy did not attach, and it was not — until that moment — absolutely necessary to shoot him.

Many officers were keeping the man continuously covered with their firearms, and all kept cars and other solid objects between him and them. Had the man actually charged officers, as soon as he was within roughly 30 feet he would have died in a hail of bullets. He was shot — from close range — with many beanbag rounds, and also by what appear to have been rubber bullets. While some of them obviously hurt him, none of them incapacitated him, and none of them caused him to drop his sword or otherwise surrender.

The man was even enveloped in a cloud of pepper spray, which had no effect. He was finally subdued, after about eleven hours, by being knocked to the ground with what was essentially a water cannon, followed by officers pinning him with an extension ladder and a pole. Low-tech means won the day. The beanbag rounds — many of them — were ineffective.

Schools are generally poorly designed to deter shooters, and equally poorly designed for defense. Their long, open hallways provide clear fields of movement and fire for killers, and little or no cover for defenders. Less than lethal methods such as tasers or beanbag rounds are seriously range-limited.

112 Comments, 25 Threads

1.
waxwing01

One thing for sure it is not so hard to stop a man with a sword compared to one carrying a machine gun like weapon. Friday I watch TV the new season War of the Dammed and see how Rome stop the slaves united with their swords on the Star channel
My question is what new conspiracy theory will gain popularity in the future with the machine gun wackos?

Machine gun wackos? No machine gun was used. In fact the latest report from Connecticut authorities is, that the AR15 wasn’t used to shoot anyone. So what exactly are you trying to say?
Also not discussed is that the majority of these active shooters had been taking psychiatric drugs, which are known to have horrendous side effects. Couple that with an irresponsible mother who didn’t keep her guns away from her troubled child, and lack of any real security or means to defend against an active shooter, and we have a recipe for the disaster that occurred. Active shooter incidents have been in the news nationally, everyone is aware of the possibility. Why is the “it can’t happen here”, “head in the sand” attitude so prevalent.

there was not even an AR or Bushmaster at the scene. It was all a pack of lies. The cornoer, on camera as he was leaving the buildling, declared all the injuries he was were inflicted by a handgun at fairly close range. The “assault weapon” “found” in the trunk of the car was NOT any such thing… I watched the video taken from a chopper hovering as the LEO opened the trunk, found the weapon, and cleared it. The rounds he ejected were large, yellow cylinders, NOT rifle rounds, but 12 guage shotgun shells. Next, the AR stype rifles have a “charging handle” at the top rear of the receiver assembly to withdraw the bolt to clear the weapon. The one the officer was clearing had a small (maybe 3.4 inch long) lever sticking out of the side, well forward, just behind the ejectioin port.. it was a semi automatic twelve guage shotgun. So, why all of a sudden the push to deomonside and take “assault weapons” from the American public? Its ALL a hype job, smoke and mirrors, a deliberate deception to “justify” the seizure of the largest single class of firearm owned in America.. the
assault weapon”, which is in itself another lie.

I knew waxwing01 was a complete troll. I have my differences with the Evangelitard contingent but his “jesus posts” on Dr. Helen’s columns just sounded too crazy for even Todd Akin and Ken Ham to be real.

Uh, perhaps YOU should get a clue! Machine guns hace NOT been banned, except in a few states. The federal government has regulated them since 1934 (not 1938), but all that’s needed to buy one legally is to file some paperwork and pay a $200 tax. Oh, and cough up the dough to a registered machine gun dealer, of which there are many.

It does not seem unreasonable that schools should have at least one armed guard that can immediately confront a major threat. These same guards can not only maintain security at the school, but they can also be equipped with tasers for much smaller threats not involving guns (such as a kid armed with a knife). Either way, the only option of stopping a shooter like the one in Connecticut is by having somebody THERE, at the scene, that is armed and can shoot back. It took the police about 15 minutes to get to the school, but by that time most, if not all, of the people were dead. The first few minutes of any armed crime are the most critical, especially if you intend on stopping the gunman. You can have all the gun laws in the world, but if you don’t have somebody that is armed at the scene while the crime is being committed, then the only thing you will have left are victims.

While I agree that having armed adults on school grounds will harden the campus it will not stop shootings. It will limit the damage but not stop it. I worked in large urban/suburban high schools as a science teacher. We had around 80 classrooms spread out over a 36 acre campus. We averaged 30 students per classroom and 40 – 60 students per PE teacher. If a shooter came on campus (s)he would be able to take out at least one classroom prior to being stopped assuming every teacher was armed. Shooter walks into the class hits the teacher first then the students. At that point every other teacher should be prepared but you still have lost one classroom of kids and a teacher.

sounds good on paoper, but reality rarely mimics paper. Who says the teacher will get taken out first? What if she gets the drop on the perp and fires first, accurately? SUre, no plan is perfect, but lets have some space for probabilities, hey? Besides… any clue as to what is the single most feared thing for criminals as they ply their trade? FBI studies show it is the potential of a victim being armed. Statistcs back this up, as in every place where citizens are allowed to be armed, violent crimes drop dramatically as soon as this is permitted. The greater the percentage of armed civilians in any place, the lowewr the incidence of violent crime. The correlations are inescapable, and universal.

WHY is it that so often, when a valid idea is put forward, here come the cries of “well, what if, and how about”, citing some set scenario as reality, and “proof” it won’t work. Besides, if shots are heard in your scenario, perhaps other teachers will hear and come running with their own guns, and stop the killer before he kills everyone on campus. The problem has all along been tat there is NEVER any suitable puchback against perps such as Lanza. The potential of armed pushback will all but end such attacks, and greatly minimise those few that are attempted. How many such shootings ever happened before the Federal Gun Free School Zones Act?

Lockable steel doors (that can be locked from the inside with a key) would at least offer protection to those in the classroom against a shooter in the hallway. Yes, the shooter would have the eliminate of “surprise”, but only right at the start. If you look at history, these school shootings (by young people) prior to the massive amount of drugging of young people that we have today. The drugs that are used have a “rebound effect” (if the pill isn’t taken) along with withdrawal effects due to the fact that these same drugs are also rather “addictive” to start with. This doesn’t hold true for all of the school shooters, but it does for some. Note that in the Sandy Hook case, the shooter broke out a window to gain entry through a door that had been locked. Reaching through and unlocking the door. Without being able to break in, his choices would have been considerably reduced from what they were. An armed guard might just be the first one to die, leaving everyone else helpless. Perhaps it would be better to train teachers the necessary skills and have them carry concealed. There is now a number of small easy to use handguns that would be suitable for this.

Chemman: Town A is 5 square miles. It has 10 police officers. If criminal goes to commit robbery and the nearest cop is 3 miles away, the criminal could commit the robbery before the nearest cop arrived. Therefore, there’s really no reason to even have the cops at all. That’s essentially the same logic your argument employs. The false choice between 100% or nothing.

Hmmm. The Aurora shooter drove past several other movie theaters, and carefully selected the ONLY theater around that posted signs banning concealed weapons.

Hey, maybe these crazies wouldn’t be quite so crazy if they knew there were X armed teachers on every campus, with X being an unknowable percentage between zero and 100, and either extreme being highly unlikely.

In other words, simply the fact that SOME staff MIGHT be armed produces a situation where the probability of some wacko deciding to shoot up a school is close to zero.

Have you ever heard of one of these wackos attacking a police station or a gun show?

All Israeli schools have an armed security guard at the entrance with a locked gate. This is mainly to prevent terrorist attacks but might also have an effect on a teacher, visitor or student attacker.

Less Lethal munitions should be used primarily, albeit not aways, when a covering officer is available with a lethal force option. Less Lethal should never be the only available option. Impact rounds are less effective if the suspect is wearing multiple layers of clothing, inmates train to disengage taser barbs and OC spray only provides seconds of reaction time. There have been impact rounds for years, this is not spectacularly new technology.

Since women are going to the front lines of military combat, this would be a good place to deploy the magic beans to subdue an attacker on the battlefield. U.S. commanders, from the Commander in Chief on down, are on this campaign to only subdue and appease militant combatants, rather than actually KILL them. DEADLY FORCE shall only be utilized, domestically, if you are perceived as a Republican, Conservative, or TEA party member.
And with the relentless campaign of the Bolshevik (Democrat) Party, to appease muslims and Islam, I’m sure many school guards to be hired will be mandated to be muslim women, and even required to wear their hijab while on duty.
Were WE a great country, or what?

I was thinking about the Israeli defence measures which has been discussed here. In the schools in Israel there are several elements which would be difficult to impliment here. In Israel the cutely painted caterpillar on the playground is a bomb shelter.

Schools here are mostly open with no real perimeter fence or gates which could be controlled by one or two openly armed and uniformed security. The threat from terrorism involves a multi layered system which aims to identify and stop terrorist cells before they begin an attack. The Sandy Hook incident is a whole different matter and prevention, difficult as that may be to tackle, needs to be part of the equation.

Conceled carriers are only potentially usefull once the shooting has begun. They will not stop an attacker from choosing the site to begin with. We all know that police can project authority because they have the look of authority, the weapons are secondary. I think if chain link and security checkpoints started going up around American middle schools the people would reject it.

On a larger scale since you brought up women and types of defensive weapons Israel has found that female soldiers are very good at that. Israel is completing a massive project to erect a security fence on its border between Egypt, Gaza, and Israel and will now do the same on the northern border with Syria which is on the path to a terrorist enclave. On the southern border many of the soldiers maintaining the perimeter are women. The Caracal unit on the border with Egypt has done very well and they are not shooting beanbags.

They have found that the female soldiers are better than the men as scouts in some ways. They have more patience and better eye for when something is not right in the terrain than the guys. Women also tend to be great sharpshooters. I know because Mrs. spin can still group better with the .22 pistol than I can. Not so well with the higher caliber but I suspect she is just playing the “unhook the fish for me I am a girl” tactic.

On another tack female police and soldiers can be very effective in defusing a potentially violent confrontation. this does not apply to school shooting lunatics we are talking about. There is no talking to them. But in most of the dangerous stuff that can happen in a school, distraught ex spouses, teenage romance breakups, bullying, that sort of thing, guys might simmer down quicker if the authority figure is female.

I can see a market for certain types of ammunition geared toward home defense. I think there are a lot of people worried now who might think there is something non lethal about this and they can just get something now to make them feel safer. The real answer to them is take a course in use of a handgun and then decide what you want to do.

You don’t understand deterence. A shooter is more likely to attack a school with uniformed guards than concealed carriers or plainclothes security personnel. He can identify the uniformed person and either avoid or neutralize the counterthreat. If there are concealed weapons carriers on the premises he doesn’t know if he will get shot in the face when he breaks down the door. Just putting up signs that say concealed weapons carriers on the premises will cause almost all attackers to find a softer targets.

Basic psychology. People in general are much better at avoiding immediate threats they can see than those they cannot. We process very quickly when something is in visible range. It is one thing to see a tiger it is another to know one is there somewhere.

I am not against conceled carry in the schools. I do think that there is an important role for uniformed armed security.

If this is basic psychology then it’s wrong. The reason that there are very few intentional hot burglaries or home invasions in the United States is that criminals are not all that hot about finding out that behind door #3 is a guy with a 12 gauge. It is uncertainty that deters not knowledge. If I know there is a threat I can plan around it. It’s the threats that I know that could exist that I can’t account for that deters me.

I think you are confusing a concealed weapons carrier in a posted gun free zone with a situation where it is known that one or more persons in the school or mall could be carrying a concealed weapon.

“A shooter is more likely to attack a school with uniformed guards than concealed carriers or plainclothes security personnel.” Can you identify for me the location and timing of the aforementioned school attacks, in the US? I can not recall a single incident where a Sandy Hook style assault on a school with an armed uniformed guard was attempted let alone succeeded.

Columbine was the target, the only target. The attackers were no, “more likely to attack a school with,” or without an armed uniformed guard. The point is, the words in parenthesis are yours, and they are unsupported. That they attacked the school despite the armed guards in no way supports the notion that they would not have attacked had members of the staff or student body been armed. Incidentally, the term, ‘more likely,’ indicates a considerable body of evidence. If I granted Columbine, which I do not, that would be one.

Uniformed armed guards my be no absolute deterrent to an attacker, but to a crazy person what is?

I think your comment was misplaced; BUT:
There already IS chain link fencing around all the schools in my area; Where are you talking about?
John Allen Muhammed and Lee Malvo terrorized the D.C area, and several states, shooting 14 people, originating in California in 2002, with a .223 Bushmaster fired through the keyhole in the trunk of their car. Thank God they didn’t see fit to snipe a bunch of elementary school kids. A uniformed armed security guard out in the open in a schoolyard, would have made an inviting target.
My daughter kept all shots from a 44 magnum in the 12″ center at 30 feet her first time shooting it. And she hasn’t received any formal firearm training.
I can see you are a sap for a woman in authority.
The U.S. isn’t nearly as terrorized as Israel, but listening to Congress, the White House, and inflammatory media, anyone would get the impression we are terrorized just as much.
Military service is mandatory in Israel for all physically & mentally eligible young adults, upon reaching the age of 18. Last I checked, conscription WAS NOT required in the U.S.

Either Kerry or Gore said that the terrorist acts we were subjected to back when whichever was running, were better treated as criminal actions. This is a true statement. Terrorists are part of an international criminal organization, not a government. Wars are, by definition, fought between governments.

Phillep;
My memory recalls the “War on Terror”, “War on Drugs”, “War on Poverty”, etc.
And the most recent and lethal; The Democrat War on the American People, with their supporting media propaganda campaign war.
And do you really think the muslims are NOT at war with the U.S. from both outside and inside Our border?
And using your terminology:
Don’t you think the criminal activity and terrorism the Obama Regime is engaged in, is a war with the U.S. Constitution, Republicans, and all Conservatives?

As an armed citizen I want to warn everyone not to carry a nonlethal weapon if you carry a gun. The police and the prosecutor will come after you if you end up using deadly force in self defense. The only time you may use deadly force is if you have a legitimate fear that you life is in jepordy. That holds even under the Castle Doctrine or in a stand your ground state. The fact that you employ a nonlethal weapon first means that you did not believe your life was in danger. The mere presence of a nonlethal weapon will lead to second guessing. “Why did you spray your attacker first?”

If you want to use a less lethal weapon and have shotgun available just load the first couple of rounds with lower velocity trap rounds with #8 shot. It can still kill but it is less likely to do so.

My “bump in the night” home defense weapon is a Mossberg 500 12 guage with a light and a recoil absorbing stock so my wife is more comfortable with it. It is loaded with #8 shot not because I don’t want to be lethal to an intruder but because I don’t want to be lethal to my wife, kid, dog, cat, or neighbor. For suburban or urban use, 00, buck and ball, or slugs just have too much over-penetration risk. Actually, at the ranges likely with a home intrusion #8 is plenty lethal and if the range is longer, one has to wonder just how defensive the shoot is.

#4 has been shown not to penetrate outside the room and it’s almost as lethal as 00. I don’t use a shotgun because I have two very active dogs and they are going to at the intruders heels. They are likely to be seriously injured or killed by a shotgun round. It’s handguns for us and maybe a slug out of shotgun.

My wife and I talked about this extensively and brought up the ideas of tazers, bean bags, buck shot, etc.. We came to the same conclusion, they either don’t have the bang or the range.

One idea I threw out was something along the lines of a sprinkle system throughout that entire school building, only it is a gas line that when the alarm is pulled gushes out gas that simultaneously calls the police and knocks everyone in the school out. I’d think that if we can develop a micro chip and get to the moon we should be able to get this figured out if we want to.

My obvious concern with lethal weapons is that they are as likely to kill more innocent people as the evil person bent on murder. But if that is the only answer train a few, NOT EVERY, skilled teachers with access to guns set in a secure steel cabinet that only their hand print, retina, nose print, or whatever will open.

There is no evidence, except for the NYPD, that the use lethal force against an active shooter results in more innocents being shot. This is an anti-Second Amendment/anti-self defense false narrative.

We have developed a false view of civilzed conduct. What is more civilized; allowing a shooter to kill 28 children or stop him in the low single digits at the expense of one or two collateral casualties?

After the riots in the UK the British police were so proud that unlike America few people were killed. They were more civilized than the roughnecked Americans. That isn’t civilized conduct, it cowardice in the face of Barbarians. Shoot a few rioters and the riots end really fast. That what civilized societied do in the face of anarchy.-

We have developed a false view of civilzed conduct. What is more civilized; declaring schools to be gun free zone, thus inviting a shooter to kill 28 children, or stop him in the low single digits at the expense of one or two collateral casualties?

The problem with gas is that the type and amount used that will quickly and dependably render an attacker insensate will also very likely kill a number of people that are more susceptible than most people. In a gradeschool environment that could be up to 25% of the children.

Funny you should mention using knock out gas. I watched a program just last week on the Military Channel about when a group of Chechen terrorists seized several hundred hostages in a Russian theater and threatened to start executing them. It was a bad tactical situation because the terrorists wired the theater with remote detonation bombs. After much study, the Spetznaz (sp) decided to use a secret knock out gas. The rigged the necessary pipes and began flooding the theater. Those hostages sitting closest to the air vents got the heaviest dose. The Spetznaz forces stormed the theater and killed the terrorists. However, the emergency responders were untrained on what to do with the hostages (the knock out gas was secret) and over 100 of them died. It likely was the only thing that would’ve worked but it is far from risk-free.

Quite so. The problem with gas in a school environment is that uniform dispersion not only can’t be expected, it’s likely impossible. In addition, no known gas acts quickly enough to render a killer or killers insensate before they can do substantial damage. The quantity of gas and saturation necessary to render unconscious a fully grown man will almost certainly be brain-damaging or lethal to women or children, particularly small children. As the Russians discovered, gas is a very, very bad idea.

Locking up the guns, that teachers may need to use to defend their students will only result in increased deaths. In the time it takes the teacher to retrieve that gun, people will be shot. In fact, the teacher may be shot and never retrieve that weapon. There is only one place for an armed teacher’s gun to be, in a holster, on their person, available for immediate use if needed.

this is liberal anti gun claptrap. Not based in FACT. FBI statistics reveal that armed citizens take out two to three times as many bad guys as do cops, and that cops hit innocents about six times as often as do civilians. SO.. armed civilians are far better at it that are the cops. WHY? First, cops are immune to prosecution, or if prosecuted, almost always “walk”, even when egregious overuse of lethal force is proven in court. Somehow, they have this invisible shield…… second, armed citizens know that, should we miss and hurt someone, WWE are fully liable. Incidents aboud of civilians drawing down on bad guys, but withholding fire because they do not have a clear, clean shot, and may hurt innocents. I WISH LEO were as careful and responsible as we civilians are.

Lastly, locking up guns is a ridiculous idea… when fractions of seconds count to take out the bag guy early, minutes will be spent trying to access the means to do so…. fingers shaking, memory refusing to function under the adrenalin dump. No, the ONLY place for a defensive weapon is secured to the person of its owner, ready for INSTANT ACCESS. When the shooter has just busted through the door into my classroom, I may have a few tenths of a second to draw and present my weapon, make the decision to fire.. or not, and carry out that decision. My own life, and that of my charges, hangs in the balance.. that fast. The concept of “guns being evil and thus needing to be secured in a “safe” place” is not wisdom at all. The gun in the safe in my bedroom is NOT available to use against the midnight housebreaker. The one two feet away, in the open, is. Or on my hip. And there WILL always be at least one in that position. I don’t care if I keep it there the next fifty years and never need it. I’ve never NEDED my seatbelt, either, but it is in the car, and I wear it every time my car is moving. I hope I NEVER need it, too. Will I stop wearing it? Do YOU keep yours handy but not clipped while YOU are driving, “just in case you need to put it on”? No, didn’t think so. At that point it is too late. Same with a personal defense weapon.

You point to a couple of good reasons why armed civilians are less likely to shoot the wrong person than a LEO and it is directly applicable to armed defense against an active school shooter. The LEO often enters a situation after the action has started and cannot always ID the right guy. The armed citizen who is being attacked will always know his target.

In the active shooting at school scenario after the initial surprise event the armed defender has the advantage of counter ambush. The shooter doesn’t know who is behind the classroom door. He kicks the door down and an armed defender shoots him from a secure defensive position. There is little chance for collateral damage.

The active shooter response TTPs that are currently in play are all wrong for a gun free environment. Lockdown should be employed only as a last resort but lockdown isn’t a bad tactic if there is armed defender behind the door.

Geezus, tdiinva;
You see too many grade B movies; If an assailant gains access to a classroom with the usual 30 student class, + teacher, he can mow down the entire class without resistance, with a bolt action rifle. (Fish in a barrel?)
If, as in Columbine, the assailants had a suicide pact, after this first ingression, and resulting massacre, what would they care that they would now be shot and killed?“WHAT DIFFERENCE DOES IT MAKE?”

You are the one who doesn’t know what you are talking about. If the armed defender is alerted he has the advantage. The shooter has only one way in and it’s covered. Robert Farago and Nick Leghorn from The Truth About Guns ran a set of simulations using simunitions and found that the alerted defender wins most of the time. You are thinking of an unlerted deefender who doesn’t know that he is targeted until the shooter walks in the door. And it doesn’t matter if the shooter has a suicide pact. When he comes through the door against an unexpected armed defender he gets shot. Do you think the defender is just standing there waiting to get shot.

Actually DOJ/FBI data shows for example in 2011 of the 12K+ homicides only 300+ were justified homicides ‘including’ those by law enforcement officers. For the 23M or so felonies committed yearly, nearly 60% involved guns and there is not data collected to indicate how many armed citizens averted the crime or held the suspect of a crime being armed with a gun.

Geez folks I wasn’t trying to get everybody all riled up, just thinking out loud. Some great rebuttals thanks. BTW I am ex military, an NRA member, have a concealed weapons permit, and own a bail bond/bounty hunter company in my old age having retired from the publishing business after 40 years For the record I live in the real world Mark and am very familiar with guns and cops and bad people. Thanks for all the remarks. Especially liked the gas mask one, heh, heh, never even occurred to me. I still think a school full of teachers with guns in their desk drawers or strapped to their ankles is a real bad idea. I know lots of teachers I’d really like to not have a gun. Thanks again.

You’re quite right. Teachers who already have concealed carry permits–or who obtain them–will be double vetted, for the normal records checks, fingerprinting, photographs, etc. for CC permits and for obtaining a teaching certificate are essentially identical. Why should teachers be able to protect their lives and the lives of their families everywhere but at school?

This would cost school districts nothing at all, but has great value as a credible deterrent if a school district publicizes that it is no longer a gun free zone, but keeps secret the numbers of teachers carrying concealed and where they work. Simply make it clear that teachers in every school may be armed and that “many” teachers are. Even if a given school has no armed teachers on its faculty, that school retains the benefit of deterrence.

Obviously, no one is suggesting that those unwilling to carry firearms be forced to do so.

An interesting look at Crime Stats in the United States using data from the FBI that doesn’t seem to be getting much discussion from either the press or politicians. There has been a 50% reduction in the violent crime rate in the last twenty years and neither political party is taking credit for this? I thought politicians always wanted to take credit for good things? Perhaps they don’t want to draw attention to the fact that higher crime rates seem to correspond with inner cities? The great thing about living in the United States is you’re Free To Choose, at least for now, so feel free to Choose Your Own Crime Stats if you don’t like these.

Lawyers really screw up our language. This technology once was termed “Non Lethal”, until people were killed with it. It morphed into “Less than Lethal” (when I got off the technical bus). Now apparently it is termed, “Less lethal”, which is absurd. I guess it makes you less dead.

It was invented by the Marine Corps to give options to commanders who handle MOUT, Military Operations in Urban Terrain, basically angry mobs. Marines are really good with machine guns, napalm, stuff which ends combat. But the bosses wanted to allow civilians, who were angry, but just wanted to talk, to stay alive.

Whatever today’s PC term, it is ALWAYS used by highly trained people with very lethal back up. Otherwise the wrong people die. Bad things happen in seconds, in combat.

It would be insanity to consider any civilian facility trying to defend itself against Assault guns, Saturday night specials, or whatever today’s favorite word for a killer’s implement, with a Less Lethal, Nicey Nice, No Meanie tool. In the real world, if a guy tries to kill children, when seconds count, the only solution is to stop him with reasonable lethal force. In simple words, a person who is on scene for other duties, who is a trained, armed amateur, must put their life in mortal danger, and try to kill the intruder.

There is no other recourse except die, or pick up dead babies.

It is very legitimate that technocrats research means to stop a person’s conduct without killing him. But I can never envision this technology being used except is very rare combat situations. The cop/ English teacher is correct. He should teach while carrying.

The school district should offer to reimburse anyone who throws a laptop, book, or any object at a perp and suffers a loss. The natural instinct is to flee or remain unnoticed (like a target). The response should be to flee or fling.

the response SHOULD be to fling lead… accurately placed. that is the ONLY safe and reliable way to stop killers such as Holmes, Lanza, Cho…… throw laptops, good grief.

It is a trevesty, and an utter failure of the American system that both students and their staff in our schools are reduced to throwing things, screaming, “hiding
behind desks….. or, worse yet, rushing the mad shooter en masse. Our forefaathers would be roaring with outrage at us for allowing this situation to govern. They had laws MANDATING that men arm themselves, train gheir children how to use arms, and carry arms with them when out away from their homes. THEY understood the proper place and use of lethal force, We have surrendered that. END the insanity of gun free zones, and allow armed civilians to carry everywhere we go. We already to most places…. but are denied some. It is, for some “odd” reason, always in THOSE very places mass shootings occur. Its not hard to figure out why THERE, and not everywhere else. With two excepetions, EVERY mass shooting (three victims or more, not counting the perp) from Columbine onward have occurred in gun free zones. I imagine the families of those dead certainly wish those places had, indeed, BEEN truly gun free. The reality is they were more like carp in a wooden barrel. No way out, no defense. When will enough be enough? END THEM ALL.

Don’t you love it that the very same kinds of people who are so reluctant to kill violent felons and terrorists, and even oppose capital punishment for monsters, have no problem with killing babies and old people, and letting our ambassadors die.

“The fact that no rational human being would assault an active school shooter with less than lethal technologies speaks volumes.” It would have been “rational” for the Principal of Sandy Hook to have sought cover. But, then, being human she did what is more rational. She gave herself over to save the children, or die trying. I believe you did not intend to speak ill of heroes.

Thanks for your comments. I was indeed speaking about policy that should be adopted long before a shooter enters a school. At present, I too am unarmed. My principal, other teachers and I would do whatever we could in the event of an attack, even knowing that in attacking an armed killer we would likely have to absorb bullets and possibly die in the attempt, helping to save no one. Honor allows no other action.

I suspect students and society in general would be much better off if brave teachers, like the principal at Sandy Hook, are never again forced to attack armed maniacs with nothing more effective than a ruler or stapler.

“the only effective way to immediately stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun. Preferably, multiple good guys.”

Such a statement from a former law enforcement officer is a bit……

With approximately 23,000,000 (common 18K cities and campuses data 10.3M) felonies committed each year and approximately 60% of them involves guns, how many good guys with guns on the streets do you propose to prevent these felony crimes from occurring?

Of the 2010, 13,000+ homicides only 300 some, were justifiable including those by law enforcement. I assume that means 300 some homicides were defensible circumstances.

To narrowly define gun violence crime as homicides is doing the conversations and debates of gun reforms, little justice. To suggest more common citizens arm themselves and present as vigilantes as a defense against gun crimes is…..

As to your suggestions for hollywood innovations of star wars types weaponry. Rather interesting how past law enforcement officers faced the same kinds of people and circumstances and did so with what are archaic weapons and tools, today. Are today LEO’s less trained and capable thus, they need to be armed with high tech weapons from Hollywood innovations? I can remember the streets of Compton way, way back in another life when there were armed thugs, gangs, riots and all the usual violent crimes and we carried simple .38 revolvers (sometimes a backup) and shotguns along with batons. We had only rare instances of injured officers or deaths and nearly always got the bad guys taken into custody. Nowadays, it takes 5-6 officers mob rushing and screaming conflicting commands too take a single suspect (m/f) into custody for a simple outstanding traffic warrant.

The core problem is the unrestricted availalbility of guns and gun types and who should be allowed to owns guns. If the Hollywood conception of high tech weapons weren’t so readily available to the general public and those that are, were highly restricted and secured to only law enforcement and military, most of the gun violence would be reduced down to the normal types of defensive and hunting weapons. Otherwise, most felonies with guns occur and are reported after the fact so, having more citizens with guns will have little more effect than LEOs on the street who prevent very few crimes from being committed. The overwhelming majority of citizens will never arm themselves and vigilantes with high tech weapons on the streets will only compound the problem of legitimate law enforcement and gun crimes.

There are two views of criminal behavior. There is the anti-Second Amendment/Anti-Self Defense gun control theory that crime is a random event that anybody, particularly someone who owns a gun will up and decide to commit a crime and then there is the rational actor model which says criminals make rational decisions about when and how they will commit crimes. In your view crime is a random event and there is no such thing as deterrence.

We can use empirical data to provide evidence to support one theory over the other. If crime is a random event then crime rates in Northern Virginia should be the same or higher than the DC, suburban Maryland or for that matter NYC. Northern Virginia is a place where access to guns is about as unrestricted as you can get while there is an absolute prohibition in DC, a practical ban in NYC and an effective band outside the home in Maryland. The Washingtonian Magazine recently had an article on regional quality of life. One chart compared crime rates of all three jurisdictions. Guess what? Northern Virginia was far safer than the two gun restricted locales. In fact, crime rates in Northern Virginia were lower than Toronto which is the safest big city in Canada. Needless to say that Northern Virginia was much safer than NYC with half the police per capita. Without 35000 cops on the street gun free NYC would be as bad is was in the 1980s.

One more piece of evidence. Hot burglaries and home invasions are 4-5 times more likely events in the UK and Canada than in the US. It seems that criminals don’t like to show up uninvited and get shot. I can reference even more data but it’s clear that in the real world criminals are rational actors. FYI, there are no shots fired in 80% of DGUs . The presence of an armed person is sufficient to deter a criminal act.

Once again, here are the three demographic factors that determine crime rates: the number of people welfare, the percentage of children born out of wedlock and the length of time that a jurisdiction has been controlled by the Democratic Party. Maryland and DC are run by Democrats and the Democrats in northern Virginia are constrained by Republicans at the state level. Once Bloomberg leave office and is replaced by a Democrat NYC will revert to the pre-Giuliani level of crime.

When you or anybody can substantiate any crime data based on “…factors that determine crime rates: the number of people welfare, the percentage of children born out of wedlock and the length of time that a jurisdiction has been controlled by the Democratic Party.” let me know!

zeke will just make stuff up to try to refute that data… or when he admits gun bans don’t work, he’ll just shuttle off to another thread and repeat “gun bans work” after his ass was kicked by fablabs and 3d printers.

To suggest more common citizens arm themselves and present as vigilantes as a defense against gun crimes is…

…that you have a problem with the 99% having the same right to armed self-protection as the wealthy elite 1%. This makes your posts “complaining” about inequality between the wealthy and the common people more odious and dishonest.

After admitting that gun bans won’t work when I smacked you across the face with the 3d printer, you continue your lies in order to disarm the 99%.

The core problem is the unrestricted availalbility of guns and gun types and who should be allowed to owns guns. If the Hollywood conception of high tech weapons weren’t so readily available to the general public and those that are, were highly restricted and secured to only law enforcement and military, most of the gun violence would be reduced down to the normal types of defensive and hunting weapons.

What do you mean by “high tech weapons”? Is the old buzzword “assault weapons” from the liar Josh Sugarmann getting too old? You know damned well that none of these restrictions will affect the availability of guns to thugs. You admitted it yourself.

The overwhelming majority of citizens will never arm themselves and vigilantes with high tech weapons on the streets will only compound the problem of legitimate law enforcement and gun crimes.

Kind of funny how low the crime rate was back when police were using only .38Special revolvers. Especially considering that there was virtually ZERO law enforcement effort against guns (unless they were in the Black community, but that’s a different issue: such laws were only enforced against a repressed minority. I was alive back then and have personal experience related to this. But… Different issue.)

Virtually ZERO law enforcement related to firearms prior to 1964, when the left started seizing control of the Democratic Party. The crime rate increase started along about 1964. The 1968 gun laws were supposed to decrease the crime rate; the crime rate kept going up. More and more gun laws, more and more enforcement, and the crime rate kept climbing, and climbing, and climbing, until about 1992. The 1994 gun ban has been shown to have done nothing at all regarding the crime rate, which suprises me as the crime rate should have increased. Perhaps because it was aimed at firearms that just were not used that much by criminals.

Guns, even toy guns ar an anthma to lefties! They have an irrational fear of gus, so they don’t want the rest of us to have guns. England banned guns and crime went thru the roof, now coppers have to wear guns and now they want to take kitchen knives away from home owners. The Government PC patrol is crazy and have no idea they are destroying their society. Now here we are with Barak Obozo, Diane Frankenstein, Chuck-u Schumer and Barbara “dumb as a box of rocks” Boxer telling us what we are allowed to have in direct violation of the 2nd ammendment of the Bill of Rights!!!!

Are there any particular legislative bills attempted that you’re referencing when you speak to a gun ban — assuming you’re talking about a total gun ban? I could be wrong, but I know of no bills introduced to ban guns or amend/repeal the 2nd amendment in my long lifetime.

I’m simply asking for somebody to produce any evidence of any such legislative attempt to ban arms ownership by an appeal of the Second amendment. So many people keep infering such and it makes me curious. The Second Amendment isn’t going down period. Regulating arms and arms ownership, which has long been held constitutional, will never infringe on the ‘legitimate’ intent of the Second Amendment — never — unless, maybe the soveriegn United States ceases to exist.

Michael – What nations do you speak of and what were their constitutions on the subject? I understand your point but I’ve been around a long time and also understand that ‘most’ special interest activist group can’t sustain its cause(s) but on the basis of generating fear in their following and more often than not delusional fear. The Second Amendment of our constitution is never going down in repeal. Regulating certain ‘arms’ and arms ownership, which is long held constitutional, will never disturb the ‘legitimate’ intent and right of the Second Amendment.

I highly suspect that zeke knows the facts, he just lies about them. After all, I caught him admitting that restricting firearms will not stop scofflaws from making them, then jumping to another thread to repeat the claim that gun restrictions work. I caught “techno” doing the same thing, and now, “techno” hasn’t been seen since on these gun threads.

I suppose Liberals will never understand that “less lethal” does not work when you are up against those crazy people who “just need killin’.” Most of them seem to kill themselves anyway when they are threatened by someone else with a gun.

And then there are times, as in Naperville, IL in the last couple days, when government thugs attack innocent house-holders, to impose privacy violation systems on them. In such cases, “less lethal” tools are the favored tools of enslavers; wouldn’t want to destroy the slaves.

There are to places in a Gun Fight, First Place, The Winner, and Second Place the Dead, When confronted with lethal force, Less then lethal response will make you a sure bet for second place, and a very long dirt nap.

A very good explanation of the limits to ‘less than lethal’ responses to violent attacks. A can of pepper spray may not cut it the way a gun could.

A gun is a tool that is used defensively to protect lives and does, many times per year. I wouldn’t trust my car to a mechanic who says he doesn’t keep certain ‘tools’ around because they make him uneasy. Or a doctor who doesn’t either because they might ‘hurt’ someone.

Tools are tools. The more people have them, the more problems can be ‘fixed’ when the occasion rises. That the left rejects guns as tools with any positive value explains why they are often the ones by the side of the road with no way to change a flat and have to call a tow service. Or teachers in a room full of kids waiting for a police service to ‘fix’ the shooter problem.

Banning a torque wrench will not eliminate a blown head gasket in the same way banning AR15s will not eliminate crazed killers. These things happen, and they happen most to those who fail to ‘maintain’ their car or school security.

It doesn’t matter what causes the problem (video games, drugs, etc.). What does matter is the ability to ‘fix’ it on the spot. The second amendment is the tool box most of us have at home. There is no reason not to have it at a school, business, mall, or wherever a problem may arise. If people can change their own flat, why must the left insist we belong to AAA or call 911 to fix a problem? An NRA auto club membership could solve a lot of our problems if more people subscribed. And, if I’m not mistaken, more people are.